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Done! I did part 1 of my expense report (what do you call that?) to my medical insurance. After yesterdays insights it is actually not that hard.

Good: done without stress, just done.

Bad: if I had done it 1,5 month earlier I would have saved about 300 Euro’s. Now invoices have expired. 😦 Well. So be it. Can’t change that now.

And…. I’ve called the blond god at his work. Did not get connected, left a number. We shall see.

For now: Mastercheff and some cleaning and realising that I do make progress. And most of it is easy and some of it is not. That’s life and part of this process is to start to accept that. Not wanting to run away from it in whatever way.

Happy that I quit. Today I am happy because I don’t want to go through what I have been going through again.

And another one of those posts where I feel my way into stuff and end up visiting a lot of places. Not specifically a nice read before breakfast. Sadness and anger ahead.

Standing still today. Guess I am still hiding from the unfinished admin. That’s when the hiding comes back.

Hiding looks like being on the internet all day, getting cold feet because I don’t take care to put my socks on, messy kitchen, bad eating habits, longing for connections but disliking direct contact with people. Not wanting to think about what I need to do is one of them. Not wanting to feel. Actually, it is all the things I did before but without the booze.

Am I happy that I quit? Yeah, happy that I quit. Do I think it is a little boring not to be either high on emotions or very low? Yes. Is that useful? No. Does that make me want to take risks I should not. Yes. Thinking of calling the elderly blond god tomorrow. That in itself is ok, but the reason to call him is not. It should be because I would like us to be in contact. But I notice that my intention is trying to find salvation through hooking up. Not good.

And I’ve got this beautiful book by Veronica Valli and I am not reading it. I want things to be simple. But when they are I get bored. How many times have I written variations on this theme? Stress addiction. Or addicted to intensity.

I SHOULD AT LEAST HAVE 1 MAJOR INSIGHT A DAY!!! OTHERWISE THIS WHOLE QUITTING BUSINESS IS USELESS! MIGHT AS WELL DRINK, DID NOT HAVE INSIGHTS THEN EITHER!!.

Hmmm. I am angry. Hence the strange stillness inside. I feel like I am not moving on. Not getting the reward ‘I am entitled to’. Still a reward issue. I need to look that up. And then I don’t. And NO, I don’t want to go down a road of berating myself. Been there, done that, does not work. So. Why have I not looked stuff up. Because I don’t want to organise myself because that takes skills that I fear I don’t have and then I will feel bad. If I don’t try I can always stay in the illusion that I actually can do things. There is freedom in not doing stuff, all exits are still open.

Feeling further: I am scared to be defined, to get shape. Ever since I got shape I got in serious trouble. Groping hands and men trying to define me, trying to tell me how to be, not only my father, loads of them. Even in the Western world there is this idea that women are not supposed to be free. Subservient, that is the idea. That is how we grow up. That is why my father forced my mother into sex, day in day out. God this makes me angry. And scared. And sad. Don’t know how to deal, want to get away from it. It doesn’t feel nice. Don’t need nice, normal would do. I keep on trying to think that I don’t have to fight their fights but it all gets mixed up. Well, I’ve got my own share to fix.

My emotional responses are still based on things that happened long time ago. Well, doesn’t feel that way, it feels like yesterday. I am scared to be defined, to get shape. When I get shape I will be seen. When I get seen I will be harassed, raped or beaten. And there is nobody that helps and no place for comfort. Powerlessness and loneliness. I guess I feel that the environment l live in has not changed. I have not changed. My expectations have not changed.

The addict thinks he/she can control his/her world. I certainly know that I have the need to control my world if this is my experience and expectation of it. Would that be addictive thinking? Aah. Fuck it! Off to bed. The endlessness of trouble, this thread of continuous missery, la condition humaine, it is overwhelming sometimes.

Do not worry about what is not here now. That would be a good one. That is clarity too. Getting rid of the fog. Would that work? ‘Do not pay attention to your traumas because the situation is not here.’ Nope. That’s the thing with traumas, they keep repeating itself in every situation until I deal.

But how can I fight the world?!

You don’t have to fight the world because the world is not here. In fact, you can, say do your admin without ever seeing anybody. If that is what you like.

I’m getting more and more real and more and more clear and I like that. I always thought I needed alcohol to dampen (is that a word?) my senses but I enjoy this hypersensitivity very much. Yes, sorry for that word, and no, hypersensitivity does NOT mean that I suddenly get all sensitive and polite. I actually found that sensitive people can be very insensitive (moi!) because they (I) block stuff out continuously. Like autism. Well today I did another day of connecting to people and I can really use this newfound skill and way of ‘being’ instead of ‘hiding’. Good :-). It is amazing that the things that I was most scared of upfront work out to be very different from what I imagined. The reality even exceeds what I could have imagined. Good 🙂

On becoming real: a few days ago I bought this memory game, it’s called ‘fake for real’ and I am loving it. It consists of sets of cards of which on has a picture of something fake and the other of the real deal. Friends and I played it yesterday evening and had great fun. If you check out the website you can actually play parts of the game online. When you combine two cards that belong together the website explains why they chose the specific cards. When you finish the game you can play again and it shows different cards. All in all very well done I think.

And I like it also because it trains my brain to be exact and use my memory muscle that has gone weak over the years of alcohol abuse.

Note: the colours are very good in the real game, this is just my scanner that is bad.

In the picture you see:

Michael Jackson as he was and how he would have been if he had not done the surgery and skin bleaching.

No deep thoughts, haven’t done shit but for today that is ok. Not sure why. I guess because of all the crying I did yesterday and the headache from not having glasses. I think I became befriended with my optician today. We spoke for 2 hours on life. I am happy that my sober life enables me to really get in contact with people AND realise that real contact is being appreciated. While before ‘people’ were ‘one block’ of ‘nastyness’ that ‘is against me’. Darkness everywhere. Very lonely. A lot of aggression in me. I assume that it is a projection of my own inner life. And now I take better care of myself, I like the outside world better.

So, happy that I quit. Although sometimes, sometimes I wonder if I could not just, just have 1 beer, ok, just have 2 six-packs and a bottle wine. Or 2, because if you do it you might as well do it ‘good’. Not because I need it, but just because I have shown that I don’t need it. Or so. Sigh. Happy that I quit. Missing some kind of physical reward. Need to look up how this reward issues work in addiction.

Those who have read the post from my former days know that I am struggling with my admin. Part of the struggle is ‘getting organised in this world / growing up’ and part of the struggle is having to deal with realising that the business I tried to set up is not succesful and I will have to return to my old job – either as an entrepreneur or as an employee. I assume you can guess why the business is not succesful? It is not succesful because I rather drank than really, really did what it took to build a business. I lacked focus and stamina. And maybe, maybe the idea in itself was shit and I got caught in the omnipotence of the alcohol addict. But I am not sure about that because everybody thought I had this amazingly good idea.

And in the meantime, in the last years, I have squandered my mothers inheritance. Not so much on booze, but on living and not earning money.

Does that hurt? Yes.

That’s what is going down when I do my admin.

Today my glasses broke. I can’t read without glasses, not within arms length. And I don’t have any back-up glasses because my eyes have turned extra bad in the last years. Getting new glasses takes up to 2 weeks.

So being in a very foul mood I turned to see if there was another episode of Masterchef online but the net started with a pastor speaking about ‘The lost son.’ from Luke. Lost for sure. For 2 weeks now I have been thinking of reading up on that, hoping I could find why anybody could be forgiven for something so stupid as I did. I never listen to anything religious, this just turned on while I opened the canal. 🙂 Little miracles.

And then I got a phone call from my administrator, not the women I send my papers to but her boss. And he said: ‘I am going to tell you this straight, and if you don’t like it you may say so… but I think things are not looking good for you and I want to know what I can do to help you.’

I cracked up, broke down, started crying. He continued: ‘No matter what you feel about admin, that is not important, we need to look at options to get you back and working. You were wonderful at what you did before, (consultancy) everybody was very, very pleased with what you did for them – why not do that again? You know what, I’ll drop by tomorrow and we’ll talk about it. You are in a bad place now, but we can help you get out. You are not the only self employed customer we have that is feeling lost. But you get on your tailored suits again and go out there. You are intelligent, know your stuff, look good- and no, don’t worry about a few pounds here and there-, you look good, make a very positive impression – you can do this.’

Did you ever have your administrator say that to you? Well I DID! Today!! And no, in his case I do not think he was out of line. We have spoken very personal in earlier years. I am happy that I quit because somehow I connect to people differently and they are nicer. Or maybe I have never seen that? Don’t know.

Yesterday at the singing course a women I had only met 20 minutes before commented on her experiences and said she felt she received love in the assignment she and I were doing together. I did love her for the courage she exercised in standing and singing while she was actually scared shitless. Like the rest of us. ‘Breathe, center, let go, just be, just see what happens.’ This would have never happened if I had still been drinking.

And then I rang a former supplier of mine who had asked me about a software problem he was having. I proposed to work it out with his employee and also proposed to look at his digital drawings – see if I could standardize them and put my drawing software to use to make files for his customers. He said: ‘If this works you we would be very happy, I’d like to hear what you would be asking for that.’ The problem is making it work because the drawings are very technical and I would need insight in the product, so I should not be counting my sheep yet. (is that a saying?)

Promises is no money on the bank yet but this is good. This is the second business options this week. All out of the blue. 🙂 I like out of the blue good things. No matter how bleak things look, I am starting to feel that I am getting my mojo back.

I am happy that I quit and like how real things are starting to feel. And not everything that I feel needs to be celebrated (with booze) or forgotten about (with booze).

My glasses broke – I was cleaning them and the brige broke. I need them to read, I can do about 5 minutes without glasses. So much for doing admin. But I can still clean like crazy of course :-D, my other favorite past time.

Felt like giving in, giving up. Not going to. This is what I hate about alcohol. It has made me incapable to deal with any stuff. And when I deal with stuff it tells me that I need a reward. Immediately. Doing stuff because they need to be done just feels like it is not an option. Happy that I am aware of it though. Makes it easier to anticipate disappointment or plain ‘boredom’, need to do some expectation management on life.

Would you know where I can read up on how this reward system works for addicts? And do you have any tips on dealing with it?

By the way; currently reading ‘Why you drink and how to stop’ from Veronica Valli. I’m not far in yet but I am loving it. Very curious what she is going to say about the spiritual side of having been addicted. 🙂

Admin. Crying. Looking at the mess I made over the last few years, did some payments, a few of them overdue. All in all the payments are higher than I have earned for years so there is this sword above my head.

I did the opening of unopened letters while watching an episode of Masterchef. The opening and folding and selecting took 40 minutes.

However, if I look at it positively I can say that I did not get any extra costs. And that is good. Even though it feels like I am totally out of control I guess it all could be worst. And I am finally doing it. Actually, it only took 15 minutes to do the payments. That is 1/3rd of watching Masterchef. God I lack perspective.

On to step 2: selecting invoices for my health insurance and sending them to get money back. That would be good. That is money in instead of money out.

Spent 30 minutes sorting papers that have been in a pile for about 4 years…. Crying, singing, crying and singing. Need to get out, need to breathe. Walls creeping up on me.

I think this is about it for today. I had planed to have it all finished today. That’s not going to happen obviously. No insight here, no perspective, no idea of time. Pffllll… Just doing it, well, that’s what I did with the dentist at first. Just go. Here I just do. Hoping that the structuring shapes me instead of the other way around. 🙂

We’ll see.

Been singing along with the Beatles. Love this song. Take of the heaven and the hell (reward and punishment) and live for the day, life in peace.

So much for the Facebooklike post. And you want to know why I don’t evolve, well because it is fucking difficult!

‘No you think it is difficult, you have done this before. You can do it.’

‘NOOO, this time it is much more.’

‘Then think how much better you will feel afterwards.’

‘NOOOO!!!!!’

‘Grow up!!!’

‘NOOOOOOOO!!!’

‘All the problems that you have exist simply because you don’t want to grow up. At some level we don’t want to take responsibility.’

‘NOOOOOOO, well, YESSSSSSSSS! I don’t want to grow up!!

Sigh, what about asking for help? The only one that I know is smart in what I am doing is a person that berates me for everything I do so that is very uncomfortable. Or I only choose her so I can exactly not help me. I never know that with me. I don’t like admin because it confronts me with where I am failing. I don’t want to fail, if I fail I don’t have the right to live so I can’t really fail.

‘Is this how you feel about others too?’

‘No!’

‘Why not?’

‘Because failing is human.’

‘So why can others fail and you not?’

‘Because I am a super human.’

‘You are the superhuman and your superpower is not doing admin?’

‘YES!! When I stall and stall and stall (and drink enough) it will go away. I will not feel it.’

My rational brain does know that my reactions are ‘nonsense’ and that I panick into sovereignty or arrogance but also I do not know how to approach this intense fear of failure. My ‘thinking’ goes into panick mode immediately.

Maybe it is like going to the dentist; don’t worry, just do it, it will be over in half an hour. I learned to go to the dentist. It took me about 3 years and a good dentist. I actually am ‘thinking’ of making dentist appointments to get my old metal fillings out right now just to outweigh the fear of admin that I have. If it were somebody elses admin I would just do it, no problem. I can not ‘carry it’, it is too heavy. But it is not! I have done this before. I can do it. There is a part of my brain that does not believe that, it goes into panick mode immediately.

Wondering how I did that with drinking. With drinking I had a rock bottom and that propelled me towards finding solutions. Part of that rock bottom is my meagre financial situation. I need to fix this admin issue if I want to stay sober. Hmmm, that makes a difference. Now there is a big picture and admin is a part of it. People that are afraid of spiders do not realise the size of the animal. I might not realise the size of the admin. Maybe it is smaller?

Did I tell you I may have an outlook on very nice work? I was on a fair yesterday and I got into a really nice conversation with people who were active in my former business. I will follow-up on it on Wednesday. There is a good thing about being sober: I connect better with people. Maybe I should try to maintain that same centering that I do with new people on admin, not jump out into fear. Ha! Ghegheghe… there at least is a way of telling myself how and when I ‘take off’ into panick.